Wednesday, April 18, 2012

The Milkman delivers

Starting pitcher:
M.C. O'Connor

Melky Cabrera roped an emphatic game-winning hit in the bottom of the 11th inning to finish off the Phillies. Comcast-Bay Area gave me the Warriors tonight, not the Giants, so I had to enjoy this epic contest via Phlegm and Kuip and the magic of Gameday Audio. Matt Cain was great again, giving the Giants nine more scoreless innings (2 hits, 1 walk, 4 K) but was unfortunately matched by the redoubtable Cliff Lee, who threw ten (7 hits, no walks, 7 K). The Giants blew early chances against Lee, and you just can't do that, and only managed to win when the visitors went to the 'pen. Santiago Casilla followed Cain with a scoreless tenth, but Sergio Romo gave up a leadoff double to Carlos Ruiz in the 11th and had to be bailed out with a classic Javier Lopez strikeout of a stud lefty (Jim Thome) and another good bit of work from Clay Hensley who induced a grounder from John Mayberry to end the threat. And speaking of threats, I threatened to hit the sack when the 11th ended, regardless of the outcome. "Leche" made it all right by driving in Brandon Belt--who'd singled with one out--to win it. An error by Ty Wigginton at third base on a ball hit by Angel Pagan moved Belt into scoring position. It proved a costly play--I note that the home lads played excellent defense. Fielding lapses have been far to frequent this season and it was nice to see them make all their plays.

Matt Cain is awesome. I would have been very upset if the Giants had lost this game.

8 comments:

Can these guys ever give Cain the win? First and third nobody out, with Pablo and Posey coming up and no runs. Then a few innings later Pill leads off with a double. He never made it past second. Giants cannot seem to hit with runners in scoring position. 4 GIDP's.

Looks like DISH does not carry NBC-Bay Area any more. I like the radio, actually, it is how I learned to love baseball. KSFO-560 with Russ Hodges, Lon Simmons, and Bill Thompson was a big part of my childhood (thanks, Mom!).

I don't know how the Giants can continue to be so bad in RISP ABs. Last year was terrible, you'd think just by random variation they'd see improvement. It was Cliff Lee, however, and he makes lots of teams look bad.

Matt Cain - 3 hits, no runs in 18 innings.Cliff Lee was also pretty good - 7 hits, but they were spread out enough. This was, without a doubt one of the classic pitchers' duels I have seen. Yeah, the Giants got some hits, but Mr. Lee is one tough customer. One downside: I have now given up on Pagan. I know he was "on base" in the 11th, but when he hit weakly (is there an adverb that implies weaker than weakly? weakliest?) into the double play in the ninth after Blanco, batting for Cain, managed to get on base, I lost all hope for him. Inexcusable. The only reason he did not hit into another double play in the 11th was luck - E5. Either ship the guy out now or put a sniper on the roof and tell him that if Pagan takes his bat off of his shoulder to take him out.

Zo's right about Pagan. Huge disappointment.Cain has been unbelievably good. I love the way he's responded to getting his mega-contract, unlike Zito, who apparently took five years to figure out how to be worthy of all that money.